A Time to Heal

by Claire Rayner

  “I took another hell of a risk, Oscar. I gave it a lot of thought, and I decided—well, you’d better hear it all.”

  And she launched into an account of Ferris’s illness, describing as graphically as she could his almost dead state, the way the tissue cultures had developed, and then the way she had applied the treatment, and how he had responded.

  “The last session was yesterday,” she finished. “I have the thermograph readings here, and Theo examined him very carefully too, and you can see his clinical report here.” She stood up and walked round the table to put the notes in front of Oscar.

  “I think I’ve got a treatment,” she said flatly. “Obviously, there’ll have to be a great many more human trials, and we need to wait long enough to be sure we get no recurrences. But I’ve had no recurrences in any of my animals, not even the earliest ones I did over a year ago, so I see no reason to expect any different response in humans.”

  There was a long silence. Then Chesterfield said very softly, “Good Christ Almighty! She thinks she’s got a treatment. I don’t—Christ!”

  And now they were all talking at once. Harriet stood beside Oscar, who alone sat silent reading the notes she had given him.

  He looked up after a while, and said sharply, “Please—gentlemen—” and the talk faltered and stopped.

  “Well done, Harriet,” Oscar said, and stood up and held his hand out to her. “We must all congratulate you. I’ll need time to digest all this, of course. It would have helped to have known something about it before this morning—but, however! You preferred to keep your own counsel so I—”

  “That’s not fair!” Harriet said quickly. “I wasn’t trying to be secretive! I just saw no point in worrying you at a distance, that’s all!”

  “Worrying me! I’d hardly be worried by such important developments! However busy I was, I’d have had time for this. I might have asked you to wait for my return, so that I could have worked a little with you. As it is …”

  “But in what way could you have worked with me, Oscar? We’ve been operating in totally different fields! Your drug methods are cytotoxic. Mine are anything but. I’ve worked on a cell regeneration scheme and—”

  “Are you suggesting that my approach is simply destructive, Harriet? That yours has greater value because—”

  “Oh, Oscar, for God’s sake! Let’s be honest! When I started this work you told me I had as slim a chance of getting anywhere as—as of finding a universal antibiotic! You told me I was leaping to absurd conclusions on the basis of very slender indications. Well, they were slender, I’m the first to admit that. But I saw a way it could be developed, so I wanted to do it. And now you’re complaining I’ve been secretive about it, when for two years you’ve left me alone to get on with it and shown pretty clearly what you thought of my ideas. Well, all right! You were justified in dismissing it at the start, but to be angry now, when you must admit on the basis of this report I’ve given you today I’ve got somewhere—”

  “While I’ve got nowhere? Oh, yes! I admit that! I’m not trying to denigrate your work, though I detect a certain amount of denigration of mine in your attitude.”

  “I deny that! I would never—Oscar, look. You’re angry because I’ve thrown this at you as a surprise, and—”

  “I’m angry, as you put it, because I’ve been kept in the dark! Because as head of this Establishment I’m supposed to keep checks on what you people do! I need to check your statistics, evaluate your methods—as a small example, have you verified your results against the figures on drug methods? Did you think to check against my own figures?”

  “That wasn’t necessary. You know that to check a totally different method’s results against the figures collected on only one other set of observations would produce false statistics! I know I may go off half-cocked sometimes, but when it comes to my work I think straight—and I think thoroughly!”

  He stiffened. “And I don’t. Is that your suggestion?” he said, and his voice was thin and controlled.

  “No! I said no such thing! But I do think you’re angry not because of being out of touch with what’s been going on, but because of the effect on you personally. You don’t really care at all about the fact that I think I’ve found a treatment. All you care about is the effect of it on you, and on your work, and your scientific name—”

  “That is an … I try to perform my function as head of this Establishment, as the person who is supposed to know what is going on here, and you imply that … that …” He floundered, and took a deep breath, and she could see the bitter anger and hurt in him, and felt a sudden sharp compunction; to have spoken to him so, knowing how badly he already felt about Ross-Craigie’s behavior, and to have done it in so public a manner—it was unforgivable of her. She should have told him last night, no matter how difficult the situation.

  Impulsively she put her hand on his arm. “But you needn’t be angry—it won’t make any difference, Oscar! You’ll still be part of my work! You are part of it! When we publish, it’ll carry your name on it, and Brookbank’s—”

  He went very white, then, and she felt the muscles of his arm tense under her fingers, and she dropped her hand.

  “Are you suggesting for one moment that I’m in any way resentful of your success? That is an outrageous assumption! All I ask of you—of any of you—is the common courtesy of being kept aware of what is going on! That I had to be away for three months hardly gave you the right to go head first into a human trial, and you ought to be the first to admit it! If anything had gone wrong and the man had died, who do you suppose would have been culpable with you? Did you stop to think of that? Obviously you didn’t! And I wouldn’t have reminded you of the possible dangers of going headlong into work of this nature if you hadn’t—”

  “Oscar, please!” she said, now horribly aware of the stillness of the other people around them, feeling the tension in them. “Don’t! Of course you’re right. I did take a hell of a risk, but I did it in good faith, and I took every precaution that—”

  “Precautions! What precautions could you have taken? None that—but this is all beside the point. What outrages me is your suggestion that I would ever—” he turned sharply then, and looked round at all of them.

  “Can we get this clear, all of you? I do not, ever, want to stop any of you from your own work. I do not want to poach on your preserves. I know every bloody research worker there ever was thinks Establishment heads are no more than parasites who claim the glory of other people’s work whenever they can. If I’ve given any of you any justification for such a belief about me, I’d like to know what it is. In the meantime, may I make it clear that when Dr. Berry publishes her work it will carry only the names of the people who actually worked on it, no others. I dissociate myself from it completely.” And he turned and went, slamming the door behind him.

  There was a long silence and then Theo said softly, “Oh dear. Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear. Harriet, my love, you may be a damned good research scientist, but you can be a bloody fool when you try.”

  3

  “HE’S GIVEN you carte blanche, after all!” Theo said. “Witnesses, dear heart, the whole bit! ‘When Dr. Berry publishes 1’ he said, and ‘I dissociate myself from it completely,’ he said. As I interpret that, it means do what you bloody well like, and he won’t play in your yard, so there! It would be a piece of delicious justice if you took him at his word and went ahead.”

  “Would you like some more coffee, Theo? And there’s still some Danish pastry left …”

  “Trying to stop my mouth with vittles? Won’t work, dear. Yes, I’ll have some more coffee, and the Danish, and I’ll talk with my mouth full. As I said, I—”

  “I heard what you said, Theo. I’ve listened for what seems like hours to you saying and saying and saying. Do stop, if you have any affection for me. If you go on booming away much longer, George will wake up and that’s all I’m short of—you must see it’s totally out of the question. Quite apart from the fact that
I couldn’t do it to Oscar, there’s the whole matter of the right way to publish to be thought about! One human trial, no matter how successful, isn’t enough to publish on, and you ought to know that. I need more trials, with long-term follow-up, before I’m in any position to claim anything definite.”

  “Mere surgical oaf though I may be, Hattie dear, I know that perfectly well. I also know that the publishing of a preliminary report is normal practice—so balls to that for an excuse. No, my dear, the significant thing about your refusal is that you give as a main reason for it your inability to do such a thing to Oscar. Why? I never thought you nourished a great undying passion for him. Have I been wrong all these years in seeing your relationship as a vastly convenient one, but no more than that?”

  She leaned back in her rocking chair, and let it sway a little, as she looked at him consideringly. “It’s odd you should ask,” she said eventually.

  “Odd? Why? Give me the rest of that delicious cake, do. I’m feeling singularly greedy this evening. How odd?”

  “Well, it’s just that I’ve been wondering myself. About Oscar, I mean. For one not much given to introspection, I’ve been asking myself questions and charting my paths for all the world like a character in a television serial of the soppier sort.” She grimaced. “Very yukky I’ve been.”

  “And what answers did you get? Did you discover why you can’t bear to upset Oscar in any way? Did you discover you are nurturing a great flamelike adoration for the man? There’s a thought …”

  “I didn’t discover anything. How could I, after all this time? Oscar is—well, he’s like you. Part of me. He’s been around so long, and we both satisfy something in each other, and how can I or anyone else say that’s passion or not passion, or whatever? You tell me—”

  “I’ll tell you one thing, Hattie.” Theo licked his fingers with catlike finesse, and drank the last of his coffee. “You’re a damned clever lady, that’s what you are. What’s more, you’re such an undevious person, you don’t even know you’re being clever, and that makes it exceedingly clever. You’ve equipped yourself with two men to play the husband’s role for you. Oscar in bed, me everywhere else. Very talented.”

  “Tell me something, Theo. What’s in it for you? I know about Oscar. He needed a woman when Rosamund died, and there I was, and we’d always been very good friends anyway—he was incredibly good to me when David and my father were killed. I don’t know what I’d have done if he hadn’t come up with this job, and then–well, I know where I am with Oscar and what he wants of me. But you—since we’ve started talking about it, tell me about you. I lean on you, I use you outrageously for everything from arranging the lease on this cottage to the problems I have with George to changing a fuse, and yet, as far as I can see, I give you nothing—tell me why?”

  “Are you seeking compliments, Hattie? Want to be told how much I care for you, how enslaved by your charms I am?”

  “Bitchy, Theo. You know damned well that—”

  “Well, in a way it’s true. I am enslaved by you. Does that make you feel better? Knowing that I’d rather be in your company than anyone else’s that I can think of? That a Sunday evening spent here at your well-ordered fireside drinking your coffee is infinitely more pleasurable than the most amusing of places in someone else’s company? I’d always thought, in my hopeful way, that you understood that it’s possible for a man in my situation to care for a woman and to find expression of that care, and a reward for it, in nonphysical ways. Or have I been deluding myself all these years, and been consorting with a woman who is so obtuse she doesn’t know there can be love without sex? Don’t tell me that. It would cut me to the cuticle to think I’d been so obtuse.”

  She could feel anxiety seeping from behind the flippancy and for a moment wanted to lean over and touch him to reassure him. But she had learned long ago to control her need to communicate by touch when with Theo: he hated it so.

  “No, of course I know. Know that there can be affection without sex—I mean, just as there can be sex without a great deal of affection. But I can’t say I knew you liked my company quite so well. At the beginning, I thought it was a convenience.”

  He laughed. “Well, so it was, dear heart. As long as the Establishment gossips could link me with you I could get on dealing with my sexual needs in my own discreet way with no one to notice or care. And when there were functions at which I needed a woman to take my arm … well, you were always so splendid for the purpose! And there isn’t any cheating in it, after all. Certainly I’ve since become so involved with you and yours that I can’t imagine life without you. You and your children—even that unspeakable old man—are very important to me. Does that make up for my being a little less than honest in the early days?”

  She smiled then. “Well, I was using you in the same way, I admit. Young widows are always prime gossip, and as long as they thought you were having an affair with me, they didn’t notice Oscar. You covered for him just as I knew quite well I did for you.”

  “But it’s interesting, Hattie, isn’t it, that right from the start you felt Oscar had to be covered? Why shouldn’t it be known that you’re his mistress? Why should it be less embarrassing for all of us to have you and me talked about as sleeping together, rather than you and Oscar? Have you always been afraid of him?”

  “I’m not afraid of him! Not in that sense. I’m just practical. To have an Establishment head known to be so intimately involved with one of his staff would cause a good deal of politicking, you know that. I didn’t fancy being cast for Pompadour. And as for you—come on, Theo! Better they should say you and I were having an affair than something a little nearer the reality? Even in these enlightened days, better to be labeled libertine than—”

  “—than honest queer, hmm?” he cut in with a sudden bitterness.“There’s a nice moral point! Dirty old man better than clean-living homosexual—the whole thing makes me puke. But there, we should be grateful, I suppose! If that hadn’t been the way of it, I’d no doubt have found some dreary gentleman with whom to build some sort of an establishment of my own, and I’d have missed a very gratifying friendship with you and your offspring. As things have turned out I can’t complain. My lines, considering what tangled ones they are, have fallen in very pleasant places.”

  He lifted his head sharply then, as a thump and a creak came from above their heads, and Harriet sighed, and got up.

  “I won’t be long. Make some more coffee, there’s a lamb. The kettle’s still on—”

  “Ye Gods, but this makes me furious, Hattie! Why should you have to deal with such disagreeable tasks—what about Mrs. Thing? Can’t she deal with him?”

  “She only sleeps here occasionally, when I’m away. And that can’t be too often, because quite apart from the fact that he doesn’t really like her all that much, I’d lose her altogether if I asked too much of her. Do stop nagging about it, Theo, and make the coffee. I won’t be long.”

  As she helped George into the lavatory, and waited till he was ready to be cleaned up and taken back to bed, she let herself think, just for a moment, of the possibility of arranging for the old man to go to a home and, as always, dismissed the idea. He couldn’t help being old and half-senile, and dealing with his lavatory needs and the rest of it wasn’t so very different from dealing with those of a child, and she’d done that for long enough, Heaven knew. Though there had been an end in sight during those days, and there didn’t seem to be any end to this. Except his death of course, and in all conscience, she could not bring herself to look forward to that.

  Mercifully, Theo said no more about George when she rejoined him and the coffee cups, choosing instead to return to the attack on the subject of publishing her results. For another hour they talked about it, and Harriet became more and more confused about what she should do. Oscar had undoubtedly given her a sort of permission to publish, and whatever he had said in the heat of the moment about dissociating himself from her work, she knew perfectly well that he would gain credit
from it. Brookbank needed a success, needed to be regarded by other Establishments, as well as by their Whitehall employers, as a place from which exciting work emerged, and this report of hers would undoubtedly bring Brookbank’s name into the public eye. So why not publish her preliminary report? Why be so squeamish about Oscar’s possibly unhappy reactions when he would in fact gain so much?

  When Theo left at half past ten, and she had locked the cottage door behind him and washed up the dinner dishes, she sat for a while in front of the dying fire, feeling too edgy and alert to go to bed, though she was in fact very tired. And then, on an impulse, she decided to write to Patty, and ask her to come down for the weekend as soon as she could.

  “I’ve some interesting work to talk to you about, and I’d be grateful for some of your ideas on what to do about it. Talking to you often helps me to sort out my own ideas, so if you can possibly get away, I’d appreciate it. Anyway, I miss you! Perhaps we could get Gordon and Jean to come too, though when small Giles is here, no one actually gets much chance to talk, do they? But it would be agreeable to see you all …”

  Then she wrote to Gordon, suggesting dates for a visit, and went to bed feeling a little more tranquil with the necessity to make a final decision thus shelved. She would now have time to get on with planning her next trials, and soothing Oscar, she promised herself next morning as she drove to Brookbank. She’d tell him she had no intention of publishing just yet and that should help. A little.

  But neither that day nor the next would he see her. She tried to arrange a time with Miss Manton, his secretary, who hid a formidable personality and an inflexible determination to protect Oscar against all comers behind a vague fluttery manner that deceived no one, but which was remarkably effective.

  “I can’t get him to listen, he’s so busy,” she murmured when Harriet tried again to pass her and go into Oscar’s office. “And I wouldn’t go in now, really I wouldn’t, Dr. Berry. He really is so very busy—he did say absolutely no one was to go in, really he did—so sorry.” And he didn’t appear at lunch on either day, and the following morning took himself off to London for “‘Discussions,’ I think—” Miss Manton said vaguely, blinking at Harriet behind her spectacles.